The MA Ulm issue.

[Tuidjy]

I decided to test all this crap in game. Here's what I did.

80 Marignon crossbowmen,
80 Ulm crossbowmen,
80 Man longbowmen

vs

80 Tien Chi footmen (shields, low armour)
80 Tien Chi inperial footmen (armour 14)
20 Tien Chi footmen, 60 Tien Chi imperial footmen (footmen draw fire, IF flank)

I positioned the infantry as far back as possible, except for the last
combination, where I positioned them in a half way decent manner. Not in my
favorite arrangement for drawing ranged fire, mind you. I ran every combination
at least twice. The attachment is a setup which you can use to fight Man, Ulm,
Marignon and Tien Chi armies. I am too sick and sleepy to actually bother typing
it all, but basically, the longbowmen win all matchups against the infantry.
They lose to the arbalest guys, but that's because of armour, not shooting skill.

The regular crossbowmen consistently lost to the mixed squad, the guys with the
arbalests lost two and won two. They did very poorly (worse than crossbows)
while shooting, but managed to steal a victory in hand to hand. If Ulm
crossbowmen have a saving grace, it's that they are OK infantry.

Afterwards I ran a few fights with Ulm against tower guards... the tower guards
wipe the floor with any combination of the same gold cost of Ulm melee/ranged
infantry. If Ulm has arbalests, they break earlier - fewer fighters, and the
arbalests kill friends and foes indiscriminately.

Imperial guards beat Ulm even easier, and tie with tower guards - win some, lose
some. Marignon's men at arms slaugter Ulm as well... basically Ulm's 10 gold,
resource 30+ infantry loses to any gold 12-14, resource 24+ infantry, even if you
match them in cost, as opposed to numbers. By the way, heavy infantry with
shields destroys any unsupported ranged troops, but that's only normal.

Hell, try it for yourself. The mighty men of Ulm cannot beat anyone in hand to
hand combat. Their only excuse for infantry are the arbalest guys, whose only
saving grace is their heavy armour, that allows them to fight OK in hand to hand.
If they had a buckler and a crossbow instead of an arbalest, they would be quite
the soldiers... but obviously they are too dumb to understand what gear works.